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Responses to Bombadil

May 19th, 2005 | 5 min read

By Matthew Lee Anderson

Many thanks for the links and the feedback on the Bombadil piece. I realized when I was writing it that it's a tendentious position, and that most would disagree with the interpretation. As I mentioned, I submitted it here and to the Torrey newsletter, but I'm happy if they don't publish it as I'm not sure I'd ever get the feedback I wanted. That said, here's the feedback and some replies:

Jim said:
This site (and the article it refers to) might be useful to you.
I actually read the latter before I submitted it. I don't know enough of the external evidence to make much of it, but I'm not sure that his analysis and mine are mutually exclusive, since his seems more about Bombadil's "species" in Middle-Earth. I wonder myself is Bombadil is not sui generis. After all, Goldberry remarks simply that "He is," and Bombadil resists the Hobbit's attempts to add any information after his name.

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Matthew Lee Anderson

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.

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Literature